Part of a major Portland street will close for eight weeks starting next Monday, as Maine Medical Center begins construction on its half-billion-dollar expansion.
Congress Street will be closed between Forest and Weymouth streets starting May 7 for the hospital to start work on the first of three stages of its expansion. The street is scheduled to reopen on June 28.
During this period, which will see initial work on the hospital’s east tower and visitors parking garage, vehicles will be detoured along St. John Street and Park Avenue but pedestrians will still be able to walk along the north side of the street.
Businesses around that stretch of Congress Street will remain open, and there will be additional efforts to divert traffic on days when the Portland Sea Dogs are playing at their minor league baseball stadium on Park Avenue, city and hospital officials have said.
The hospital could be fined by the city if Congress Street is not reopened by June 29.
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Hospital patients and guests will be able to enter the visitors parking garage through the employee parking garage on Gilman Street. Emergency patients or those scheduled for surgery should follow signs to the hospital’s emergency department entrance, where free valet parking will be available, a hospital spokesman said.
Hospital officials expect construction on the visitors garage to be complete by the end of this year, while work on the east tower is scheduled to be finished in late 2019. The first phase of the project will add 64 new rooms for cancer patients and 225 new parking spaces as well as move the hospital helipad to the roof of the east tower.
They are part of a 5-year, $512 million expansion plan set to create 19 operating rooms at the hospital, add a new entrance and increase its overall footprint by roughly 25 percent. The project will not expand the hospital’s patient capacity, but rather convert Maine Medical Center’s many double-occupancy rooms into ones for single patients.
The later phases of the project must still be reviewed and approved by the Portland Planning Board before they can move ahead.
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